Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

68 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99
"I asked the doctor if he would come to the river with me; we
took a dipper ^^ which we filled with water, and when we got back to
the house, we sprinkled some of it on the boy's face; I then went back
to the river and poured the rest of the contents of the dipper away
exactly where we dipped the water from. When I came back, I
asked Doctor Mink if he would examine with the beads again to see
if the boy could be cured: I prepared cloth and the beads ^'^ and I
went with ISlink to the edge of the river. He examined with the
beads, but found there was no hope. I put down some more cloth
and beads, but again the doctor found there was no help. I then
suggested to change the boy 's name. Charlie could die, but we would
give him a new name; we would call hhn Alick.^^ Mink then again
examined with the beads, and he found that Alick was going to get
better. They tried a fourth time, and again there was hope. I
then got Mink to examine to see if he would be able to cure him; but
he found he couldn't. Then he examined for another medicine man,
and then for another, and another, and finally he found that Og.^®
could cure him. We then sent for Og. to cure him. In the sick boy's
house nobody was allowed to sleep that night.*° Doctor Mink kept
busy about the fire, working against the witches.
"Og. came down every morning and every night; he did the curing,
and Doctor Mink did the examining with the beads. Four days
afterwards I went down to the river once more with Doctor Mink,
and we found that in seven days Alick would be about, hunting.
And so it was."
Surgery
As compared with the rest of their medical practice, surgery is
but scantily represented in Cherokee curing methods. However,
what little there is, is of sufficient interest and importance to be en-
titled to a short synthetic description.
As the first in importance the different methods of scarification de-
serve to be mentioned. Scarification is still practiced extensively,
and I may add intensively, not merely by the medicine men but also
by the uninitiated. The ball pla3''ers are still subjected to it, as has
been minutely described by Mooney.*' The "scratching" of the
ball players is usually practiced by means of the k^anu^'oa instru-
36 Cf. p. 58.
3^ W. here plays the role of medicine man's assistant as his mother did in the
previous ceremony (cf. p. 62).
38 I. e., Alexander.
39 Cf. p. 112; pi. 9, a.
« Cf. p. 31.
« "The Cherokee Ball Play," Amer. Anthrop., Ill (1890), pp. 105 seq.; cf.
also Culin, "Games of the North American Indians," Twenty-fourth Ann. Rept.
Bur. Amer. Ethn., 1907, pp. 575-587.